Terrorists SUCK

[TomOfSweden]

When it comes to our Christian values, American's are too tolerant to other ways of thinking. To me our way of thinking is superior to Islam's way of thinking. Let's tell them that. In the end, we may have chosen the incorrect way of thinking. We nevertheless have chosen.

I do agree that US moral values are superior to the moral values of the Middle East. But lets attribute those values to those who deserve it. USA and US moral values is the result of the Enlightenment, not Christianity. That much should be painfully obvious if you'd paid attention is school. It is very dangerous to lean back on religious moral superiority, because you're robbing yourself of any leverage with which to win arguments. Since it's all down to faith. You cannot claim your interpretation is better.

And even if you believe your morals stem from Christianity, there's more holes in your argument. The original Christian Bible is just an ever expanding bunch of lose articles of unclear origins. Just because Emperor Constantine put his foot down and created what we now know of as the Christian Bible for political stability doesn't mean that it is in any way clear that is what God had intended. The Bible is very much the work of the evolutionary process of philosophy. Constantine's Bible, the Versio Vulgata didn't become popular until way after the Roman empire was long gone. We also need to understand that new Christian books on the nature of God kept coming even after the Bible was compiled. They're still coming out!

See now why Muhammed thought Christianity was corrupt in 600 AD? It couldn't agree on a single cohesive Bible. It didn't have a single message or any cohesive collection of rules to live by.

Islam is an attempt of an update of Christianity. It was an attempt to create the same religion but less open to interpretation. He was quoted with wanting to create original Judaism before the Christians corrupted it. What he meant was of course not that Christianity was evil, but that there was little or no cohesion and everything was up for debate, which was exactly that which Constantine wanted to achieve by establishing the Versio Vulgata by force. Read up on the Gnostic debate if you don't believe me. None of this is controversial or any kind of secret. Islam is the attempt to sift out that original core of divine truth of Judaism which had become very much unclear in 600 AD.

Of course, (or I should say probably to appease any fundamentalists on the forum) both Islam and Christianity quickly veered away from any original message there might have been, (because much of the original context is lost) and had to adapt to political realities. Christianity today and Christian values are not the result of the message of Jesus. Just as little as Islam today and Islamic values is the result of Mohammed's message.

We do know a lot more about Mohammed than Jesus, so as far as accuracy is concerned Muslims have an easier job. But we know plenty of Islamic rules today go right against what Mohammed explicitly stated. Like the Sharia. Mohammed decreed that every city should have it's own Sharia adapted to local customs. We all know how much this very liberal aspect of Islam is habitually ignored. The idea of a shared common Sharia comes from the Abbasids, the first Muslem empire. It just wasn't practical outside the Arabic tribal peninsula.

It was also forbidden for Christian and Jews to convert to Islam because Muslims should regard them as followers of the exact same faith and equals. More evidence Islam is in it's core liberal. Where as Christians have no idea of which of Jesus's messages have been corrupted over time. At this point so much has happened to the original message that we actually know nothing. We can't even prove if Jesus was one or several men. It's all assumption.

But we know for a fact that Mohammed realised the power of the 10 commandments and it was the prime motivation for him to introduce Judaism in tribal Arabia. Remember that this was in a time of paganism, virtual anarchy and no courts and constantly fluctuating laws based on the whims of minor rulers.

As far as basic religious moral values I'd say Christianity and Islam are identical and interchangeable faiths.

[DOMLORD]

Tom is right here. you can't just base your values on something religion says just because they say so. and even when we look at religions that have nothing to do with christianity the people have pretty much the same moral values and thoughts about things that play into laws and cultural values around the world. look at the collective unconcious theory from Karl Jung. everywhere in most cultures killing is bad, a father who doesn't support his family is the scum of the earth, hurting children is one of the worst offenses any one can commit. even if laws fluctuate these kinds of base moral values are found everywhere in the world.

[Lion]

Said pretty much everything I wanted to except...

It was also forbidden for Christian and Jews to convert to Islam because Muslims should regard them as followers of the exact same faith and equals.

It's not forbidden for them to convert, it's encouraged. However in the Quran, Islam recognizes the two religions. Regarding Islams views towards other faiths, there is only one line in the entire text that says anything about it which is that there should be no compulsion of religion, meaning anyone can decide their own faith and not have to justify it in the face of any other human.

[TomOfSweden]

Said pretty much everything I wanted to except...


It's not forbidden for them to convert, it's encouraged. However in the Quran, Islam recognizes the two religions. Regarding Islams views towards other faiths, there is only one line in the entire text that says anything about it which is that there should be no compulsion of religion, meaning anyone can decide their own faith and not have to justify it in the face of any other human.

I can't find a reference about it on wikipedia. But it was something like 1000 - 1200 AD when the Ottoman Sultan decreed for the first time in Islamic history that Christians and Jews where allowed to convert which went right against the explicit instructions of Mohammed.

And almost all Christians and Jews did convert since they could pay lower taxes. And this allowance was retained as the Ottoman empire grew until it finally encompassed the whole Islamic world. The Islamic tradition of letting non-muslims, (dimmis) pay higher taxes is because they're not expected to give a part of their earnings to charity. The lowered taxes is just a compensation, it's not because of any kind of heirarchy. This is also when wearing the Chador/Burkha becomes a Muslim tradition. This was earlier a purely Christian practice.

Mohammed not only had poetry readings, ie what is the Koran, but he also explained to people how to interpret it, (which did not make it into the Koran and was the basis of the Sharia). A lot of this is saved, and even letters written by Mohammed himself. They can be read at the Topkapi palace in Istanbul. We know quite a lot about Mohammed as a man.

But modern Islam is just like modern Christianity modern inventions. Islam retains very little from the original messages, and in the case of Christianity we don't even know what, if anything is retained from original Christianity.

edit: this is all described in great detail by Karen Armstrong in "the history of God". If you care about religion in the least I recommend it very much. It's a great book. She's extremely diligent when it comes to finding and evaluating evidence and has quickly become one of the worlds most respected authorities on religion. She's a former Catholic nun, and very much still a Christian so don't put her among the recent atheist attackers of religion. She's also the only Christian scholar who has received praise and plenty of prizes for her work on Islam by Middle Eastern religious institutions.